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Arrest rates for intimate partner violence have increased dramatically since the implementation of preferred and mandatory arrest policies. Of concern has been the increase in the percentage of cases in which both parties in an incident have been arrested. This article examines the current research on dual arrests and the deficiencies of that research, argues that dual arrest should not be examined in a vacuum but should be placed in a broader context taking into account both the full range of police options and comparisons of police action in intimate partner violence cases to the responses to other domestic and nondomestic incidents, and outlines an agenda for future research.

It has been argued that the police do not respond to domestic calls involving same-sex couples in the same manner as they respond to calls involving heterosexual couples. A major problem facing researchers examining the police response to cases involving same-sex couples has been the lack of adequately sized samples. In this article, the authors utilize the 2000 National Incident Based Reporting System database, which contains 176,488 intimate partner assaults and intimidation incidents reported to 2,819 police departments in 19 states. The key issue examined is whether similar cases involving same-sex and heterosexual couples result in the same police response.

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